Quarkspace
Quarkspace is an American psychedelic band that has been together since the mid 1980s. They are known for combining improvisational spacerock and electronic experimentation with folk and progressive songwriting.
Musically, Quarkspace’s influences straddle the American and English psychedelic scenes of the late 60s - namely The Grateful Dead, Buffalo Springfield and Jefferson Airplane from America combined with the more keyboard-oriented Soft Machine and Pink Floyd from the UK. They’ve always been experimenters with new technology - sometimes channeling more modern influences like Stereolab or The Orb.
The first self-titled album was released in 1996 and featured strong compositions, but unfortunately weak-production. Quarkspace soon hooked up with the American Spacerock scene through the Strange Daze festivals, where the band performed at every one from 1997 to 2001.
A live album (Live Orion) and a double album (The Hidden Moon) revealed the band to be increasing it’s sonic blueprint, songwriting skill and production ability. Their final (to this date) studio album, Drop, was released in the public domain in 2001. It is widely-considered to be their best studio album and was rated 4.5 stars at the All Music Guide.
In 2004, Quarkspace also hooked up with legendary comic book artist, Matt Howarth, for Node in Peril - an unique and innovative combination CD and comic book. Quarkspace used some of its best improvisational material slated for the Spacefolds series along with a few instrumental compositions as their musical contribution to the release.
Concurrently, Quarkspace also releases improvisational albums as part of their Spacefolds series. The series is currently at number 9, which was released in 2009 as primarily an online release (Spacefolds 8 in 2008 was the first Spacefolds release in this format). A new “real” studio album, All These Suns, is currently being worked on with a potential release date in 2010. So there.
Discography
Spacefolds 10
released:
2010
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Worcester 07/06/2000
released:
2000
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Spacefolds 9
released:
2008
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Spacefolds 8
released:
2007
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Node in Peril
released:
2004
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Drop
released:
2001
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Spacefolds 7
released:
2001
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Spacefolds 6
released:
2000
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The Hidden Moon
released:
1999
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Spacefolds 5
released:
1999
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Live Orion
released:
1998
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Spacefolds 4
released:
1998
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Spacefolds 3
released:
1997
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Spacefolds 2
released:
1997
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Spacefolds 1
released:
1996
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Quarkspace
released:
1996
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Members
Darren Gough: Guitar
Chet Santia: Bass, Guitar, Vox, Loops
Jay Swanson: Keyboards, Synth, Loops
Paul Williams: Drumming, Loops, Synth, Keyboards
Emeriti
Kevin Wherry: Bass (1985-1987)
Stan Lyon: Guitar, Bass (1998-2006)
Dave Wexler: Guitar (1996-2001)